The Backbone of Bayonne

By MARIA NEWMAN

Published: March 28, 2004

BAYONNE—
VINNY BOTTINO says he has become convinced that his life is a lot like that of George Bailey in the movie ''It's a Wonderful Life.''

So what if Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, lived in the fictitious but idyllic small town of Bedford Falls, N.Y., while Mr. Bottino lives in Bayonne, that faded industrial city best known for its once-thriving shipping terminals and refineries? Never mind that Bailey's family business was banking, while Mr. Bottino's is a bar and restaurant.

And leave aside the film's treatments of suicide and alcoholism. No, what Mr. Bottino was referring to is the movie's message of family and friendship, of a man who in the end is grateful for living in the town where he grew up, because that is where he finds love and support and financial success.

Mr. Bottino is one of four generations of Bottinos to live in Bayonne. His paternal grandfather, Vincent Bottino, came here in 1925 from Torre del Greco, near Naples.

Vincent was a bricklayer and his wife, Georgina, a seamstress. They worked hard and attended Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church, like many of the Italian immigrant families here who were the backbone of Bayonne.

Their son, also named Vincent, bought the Big Apple Bar in 1976, and when he retired four years ago, two of his seven children -- Vincent Jr., the eldest, known as Vinny, and Mark, the youngest -- took it over.

''I love Bayonne,'' Vinny Bottino, 47, said as he sat in the restaurant part of his establishment on Broadway. ''I've been here all my life. I'm happy here. My kids are happy.''

In many ways, the story of the Bottinos is the story of the families who make up Bayonne, a city of 62,000. Situated on a peninsula at the edge of Upper New York Bay, it is a stable place of one-, two- and three-family homes, many handed down from parent to child through the generations.

Joe Ryan, a past president of the Bayonne Historical Society, said that the majority of the city's residents had lived here for at least two generations, and many of their families came here by way of Ellis Island.

''The sense of community and sense of family ties is a lot stronger here than in a lot of newer parts of the country,'' said Mr. Ryan, now public information director for the city. ''There's a stronger sense of continuity here than in suburban areas where corporate families move every two to three years. Bayonne is more stable than that.''

But for many families, that kind of continuity was broken by the economic shocks the city has suffered over the decades.

A couple of generations ago Bayonne was a bustling industrial city and one of the largest oil refinery centers in the world. In the 1920's, Standard Oil was its largest employer, with more than 6,000 workers. During World War II, Bayonne also became home to a large shipping terminal, built on a manmade peninsula jutting into New York Bay. At one time the installation -- the Military Ocean Terminal -- employed 3,000 people.

When Vincent and Elaine Bottino bought the bar in 1976, it catered to longshoremen from the terminal, and others working in the factories that once dominated this city, like Texaco and Best Foods, which made Hellmann's mayonnaise here.

''I used to open the bar up at 6 a.m.,'' said Elaine Bottino, 72, ''because there were people who came in after they got off the night shift.''

But Texaco cleared out its storage and refinery operations in the 1980's, and the Military Ocean Terminal shut down in 1999. The Best Foods plant, which had been taken over by Unilever, closed last year. Once the industries departed, so did many of the jobs. And once the jobs left, so did many of the Big Apple's patrons.

But Bayonne is a scrappy city. Take the Military Ocean Terminal. The city, which now controls the old military post along with the dozens of warehouses and other buildings left behind, has plans to build thousands of homes on the 437-acre waterfront parcel.

In the meantime, the acres of open land and old buildings have been discovered by Hollywood. The director Ron Howard shot ''A Beautiful Mind,'' starring Russell Crowe, at a sound stage there. In 2001, the HBO series ''Oz'' began filming there after the producers turned Building 73, a warehouse, into a maximum-security prison set.

At a nearby waterfront location, a golf course is being built on a former waste disposal site. And in December, the cruise ship operator Royal Caribbean International announced that it would move the Nordic Empress and one of the world's largest cruise ships, the 3,114-passenger Voyager of the Seas, to Bayonne for cruises starting in May.

A light-rail line that offers easy access from Bayonne to Jersey City and the PATH is making the city more attractive to commuters who work in financial services and other white-collar jobs in Manhattan. But Bayonne is still the kind of place where, if you're from the neighborhood, the world is your oyster -- and if not, well, good luck, pal.

If Bayonne has reinvented itself, so have the Bottinos and the Big Apple Bar.

Vinny Bottino said the city had more than 100 bars when his father opened the Big Apple. Now it has about 70.

''We live off our own people, since we don't get a lot of outsiders coming here,'' he said. ''In the early 80's our family realized it was time to change, so we went to a sports bar, and it took off.''

The top of the bar now bears five satellite dishes, and two dozen screens line the walls inside, so patrons can watch every kind of sports event.

And because people no longer drink as much as they used to, the family also took over the space next door four years ago and turned it into a restaurant that caters to families, with outdoor seating in the back.

Vinny and his wife, Toni, work at the bar and restaurant at least six days a week, they said. Mark, 37, a Bayonne firefighter, works here on his days off.

Their father, the elder Vincent Bottino, retired in the 80's. After he and his wife turned the bar business over to their sons, they moved down to Florida, where other family members live. Mr. Bottino died of colon cancer three years ago, but in all the time he lived down there, recalled his widow, who has since returned, her husband's license plate always read, ''Bayonne.''

''He loved where he came from,'' she said.

Mrs. Bottino now lives with Vinny and Toni and their children on West 8th Street, in the same three-family house where she reared them. Mark lives with his wife and daughter on Avenue A, in the house where his father grew up.

Mrs. Bottino, whose parents were of Irish descent, said she met her husband at a dance at St. Andrew's Catholic Church when they were both teenagers. At 17, he was supporting his widowed mother. The couple courted, but he did not want to marry until he was able to support his bride.

Then, when he was 19 and working at Tidewater, a company that made tar and paint products, he lost his right hand in a machine that put the lids on the tar cans.

''He had 13 operations,'' his widow recalled. ''Today they probably could have saved his hand.''

He was laid off by Tidewater after the accident, but went into business for himself as a milkman. Only then did he feel he was ready to marry and start a family, Mrs. Bottino said. Before he finally bought the bar, she said, he sold insurance for a while.

''He was a hard worker,'' she said.

So were her children. Some of the older ones helped their parents at the bar.

For 15 years, the Bottino boys had a paper route delivering The Bayonne Times, now The Jersey Journal. One of the sons, Freddy, was riding his bicycle one Saturday morning when he was hit by a truck. He was 9 years old.

Mark remembers that day. A friend named John D'Onofrio had been riding with Freddy. ''John came riding down the block and he said, 'Bottino, I got to tell you something,''' he said. ''And the way he said it, he was so nervous. He said, 'Freddy got hit by a truck,' and he just took off on his bike and ran to his house.''

''I ran in the house and told my father and my mother,'' Mark said, his voice shaking. ''Vinny and our other brother George ran down there, but by then it was too late.''

''George picked him up, dead on the street,'' Mrs. Bottino recalled.

There are so many memories in the town, more good ones than bad, that Vinny Bottino said he would never leave. He and Mark both married women who grew up in Bayonne, so their children have extended family here on both sides. Mark's wife, DeeDee, works for the city's urban enterprise zone.

The brothers both own antique cars, and take part in a car show that makes its way down Broadway once a month during the summer. Mark has a 1968 Firebird convertible and Vinny a 1970 GTO.

Because they were athletes as schoolboys, the two brothers sponsor several youth teams in town. ''It's my way of giving back,'' Vinny said.

Last Sunday, Vinny was named Man of the Year by the Bayonne Police Department's chapter of the Emerald Society. He rode down Broadway in the city's St. Patrick's Day Parade.

Photo: The Bottino family at the Big Apple Sports Palace, which their patriarch took over in 1976. According to the local historical society, the Bottinos are the typical Bayonne residents -- a long-faithful group whose forebears arrived direct from Ellis Island. (Photo by Jill C. Becker for The New York Times)